


Tell Yourself This Is How It's Going To Be

by raquians



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (i think that's tagged right... maybe), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Derek and Scott are Brothers, Derek and Stiles are Mates, Hurt Stiles, Light Angst, Lydia Martin & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Mates, Nice Peter, Peter is not crazy, Protective Derek, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, mentions of self harm, mentions of thoughts of suicide, sort of angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 11:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1185864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raquians/pseuds/raquians
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s only ten when Scott’s mom announces she’s going to marry someone else, even though Stiles still doesn’t understand why she unmarried Scott’s dad two years prior. The man seems nice enough—Peter Hale he’s called—although his nephew seems scary and a bit too big for Stiles and Scott to be allowed to talk to because he’s sixteen and in high school. </p><p>or </p><p>The one where Stiles is pretty sure he's cursed and everyone in his life leaves him at some point, and if they haven't yet-- they definitely will. </p><p>{{title from the weight of living pt. ii - bastille}}</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Yourself This Is How It's Going To Be

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this is enough canon that I put it under 'Canon Divergent' but here are some key things to remember: 
> 
> 1\. Peter is not evil.  
> 2\. I started writing this in June 2013. I had too much down when I came back to it that I wasn't going to change it to fit current canon.  
> 3\. Derek was never with Kate. He still knows who she is and vice versa.  
> 4\. Scott is not a true alpha. 
> 
> The rest of what you need to know will hopefully be explained in the story. 
> 
> {*NOTE: like i mentioned, i started this in june 2013, and i've just finished it now in february 2014. please understand that there might be a few mess ups or plot holes that i didn't catch. i'm almost positive that i caught all of them, but i went seven months without even looking at this thing, to finishing it in a matter of hours. i might have missed something.} 
> 
> {**NOTE: this was also only supposed to be around 2,000-3,000 words. ... it didn't work out that way.}

He’s only six when he meets Scott. They are both in Mr. Paulson’s class and while Stiles _has_ seen the boy around before, he’s never taken note of him.

The thing is—Stiles’s dad is the Sheriff, and his mom is a nurse. It’s his _destiny_ to save lives; he knows that much at his young age. What else is he supposed to do? He doesn’t _want_ to do anything else.

Scott McCall is the first person to give him that chance when the boy has an asthma attack in the middle of class. Stiles of course _knows_ what is going on because he’s noticed Scott sputter out a few breaths occasionally before using some device. Stiles is pretty sure what Scott uses is called an inhaler, but he’s not certain. He is, however, certain of its location, which has him jumping out of his seat as soon as he hears the ragged breathing. He’s searching for the red and black book bag he’s seen Scott wear on the way out of their school and when he finds it he reaches in the front most zipper pocket and pulls out the L-shaped device, rushing back over to the other boy. Scott grapples for it, sticking it in his mouth and pushing the button, bringing a fair amount of relief to his lungs.

Stiles wins a certificate from his teacher that day for his actions and he also wins a friend—his first best friend.

&+

He’s only seven when his father comes home heartbroken about two kids who are now orphans after a house fire. He over hears that their uncle—if he ever recovers from his burns—might eventually father those two kids.

&+

He’s only eight when he befriends his future wife. Her name is Lydia and she’s got pink-ish, maybe orange-ish, and definitely a bit red-ish and yellow-ish hair. She out smarts him and he likes a challenge—his mom is always reminding him that he can’t improve without competition. They compete the rest of the year but all in good fun, because after all, Stiles knows they’re in love deep down.

&+

He’s only ten when Scott’s mom announces she’s going to marry someone else, even though Stiles still doesn’t understand why she unmarried (he later learns the actual term is called divorce) Scott’s dad two years prior. The man seems nice enough—Peter Hale he’s called—although his nephew seems scary and a bit too big for Stiles and Scott to be allowed to talk to because he’s _sixteen_ and in _high school_. He’s quiet and Stiles doesn’t like that, but he quickly finds out that Derek—that’s his name—doesn’t seem to like him and maybe that’s why the older boy is so quiet.

He soon discovers that _Derek_ is the boy who lost his family in the fire and the day he finds out, Stiles hops on his bike and rides three blocks to Scott’s house—not for Scott though.

When Melissa pulls the door open and greets him, he has tears in his eyes as he looks up at her, asking for Derek. She points up the steps and Stiles rushes past her, ignoring Scott’s enthusiastic greeting from where he’s playing Super Smash Bros. on the large TV that Peter had brought with him when he and Derek moved in.

He bursts into Derek’s undecorated room and sees him hunched over a plain desk with nothing but books and paper on it.

The ten year old flings himself at Derek and hugs him tight. He feels the boy tense up but ignores it, murmuring, “I’m sorry. We’ll be your family, okay? We’re not going to replace them—mom tried doing that when my hamster died two years ago—it wasn’t the same, but I love Muffin in a different way than I loved Cookie. But Muffin is still my hamster, she’s just not Cookie, you see? You can love Scott’s mom and Scott and me—and even my parents, you just haven’t met them yet—in a different way than your family, but we’re still you’re family.”

Derek doesn’t respond, only stares at Stiles in a mixture of shock and confusion until Scott comes racing into the room, exclaiming to Stiles that he unlocked a new level. Stiles looks up at Derek and smiles before releasing him and following Scott to the TV downstairs.

At dinner, Derek comes down and offers to help Scott’s mom with prepping the table and it’s the first time Stiles has heard Derek talk, and it seems to be the first time that Scott’s mom has been offered help by him because she stares at him for a few seconds before a grin breaks on out her face and she nods happily, reciting the story eagerly to Peter when he gets home who in turn denies her claim because that isn’t like _Derek_. When he walks into the kitchen and sees Derek carrying the burgers over to the dining room table, however, Peter stops in his tracks and stares.

Stiles doesn’t realize what is so shocking because Derek is just doing what families do. It’s perfectly normal for Stiles—why is it so foreign when it comes to Derek?

When Scott claims his attention then and starts talking about how he’s kind of hoping that his mom has another baby with Peter so he can have another sibling—a _real_ one, Stiles stares at him. “Derek _is_ your real sibling,” he answers simply, not understanding how this entire household seems to not understand Derek being part of a family.

Another thought hits him then. The rest of the day he wonders where Derek’s sister might be.

&+

He’s only eleven when he’s diagnosed with ADHD and gets in his first fist fight—a majorly unfair one too considering it’s three against one, and those three are all thirteen and fourteen year olds. The other boys are teasing him for his new diagnosis at the local park where no parents are to be found because it’s a _safe_ park. Stiles is waiting for Scott to get there and he tries to ignore their taunts for a while until one of them calls him stupid and he whirls on them. “ADHD doesn’t make me _stupid_ ,” he snaps. “In fact, your lack of ADHD is probably what makes _you_ stupid.”

None of the boys like that comment very much and they decide that Stiles needs to be shown how smart they can be—they know that three outnumbers one and Stiles is officially out of luck once the first punch is thrown. He falls to the ground and gets kicked, spit on, jumped on, and punched and he’s yelling for them to stop but he can hear that all the other kids ran away once the fight began, and now they were alone. He thinks maybe he might die, and he thinks maybe he can come back and haunt them as a ghost.

“Stiles?” a muffled voice calls. “Get the fuck away from him!” the same muffled voice shouts again, and the beating stops, but the pain doesn’t, and he can’t even tell where he’s hurting, just that he’s pretty sure he’s dying, because that’s the only thing that could be this painful—he’s sure of it.

“Is he gonna be okay?” a frantic, younger voice asked, which is also muffled. Stiles realizes that maybe the voices aren’t muffled, maybe his hearing is just fuzzy.

“Yeah, Scott,” the first voice snaps hastily. “Dial 911. Tell them we’re at the park. Need an ambulance.”

Stiles recognizes Derek’s voice and chopped sentences and feels relief that he at least gets to die surrounded by family, though he wishes his mom and dad were there, too.

When he wakes up in the hospital later, he learns he has a dislocated shoulder, concussion, two broken ribs, a broken nose, and a broken ankle—all injuries that could have been avoided had they not been _jumping_ on his body.

He sees his mom and Derek on the couch in his hospital room. He smiles at the both of them, and Derek excuses himself with a pat to Stiles’s less harmed shoulder. “Feel better, kid,” he offers before he disappears out the door, letting Mrs. Stilinski fret over her only son.

&+

He’s still eleven when he finds out his mom has seven months to live. She was diagnosed with stage four cervical cancer. Stiles doesn’t know what the first three words mean in relation to her illness, but he knows that cancer is bad.

He refuses to leave her side for anything but school—living at the hospital when her life expectancy drops from seven months to two months in the matter of three weeks. Stiles yells at the doctors for their miscalculation, ignoring his mother’s weak shushing, paired with promises that it would be alright because he’s not stupid and he knows it’s _not_ going to be alright.

He doesn’t go to school for the two weeks before her death, and he talks avidly with her, making her laugh as much as he can, and making her smile as often as he can. He tells himself that she’s getting better sometimes—she can sit up on her own occasionally which she can’t do on other days, and she can drink water on her own two times out of five.

He knows she’s not getting better, but he can’t accept that, so he doesn’t. Not until he’s forced to.

&+

He’s only thirteen hours into his twelfth birthday when she dies.

Everyone is there—Melissa, Peter, Scott, Derek, and most obviously his father.

They’re crowded around the bed celebrating his birthday when she decides to take a nap. Before she falls asleep, she calls over Derek and tries to squeeze his hand, but her strength fails her. He frowns at her, and she smiles at him. “Take care of him, will you?”

Stiles watches at their interaction, confused by her words, but fortunately Derek seems to understand them perfectly, at least according to the look on his face.

With wide eyes, Derek shakes his head, “I can’t—I don’t know how—you’re the only one who can.”

She stares up at him and shakes her head from side to side. “You can. You’ve done it before—you have to now. He’s not going to be happy, but you can’t let him think anything of it being today if I’m right.”

Derek grips her hand tight and hugs her gently, an action Stiles, nor anyone else in the room, has ever seen Derek perform with anyone. He pulls away with a stoic face, but his eyes shining with tears. Stiles’s dad jumps up from where he is sitting on the couch and rushes over to her, hugging her and crying to her.

She motions weakly for Stiles to come over then. He does, and he smiles when he hears her murmur his first name. She follows it with a short “I love you” and tells him to enjoy his birthday and his life. He promises he will, and promises he loves her too, and that she looks tired, so she really needs some sleep. He gives her a kiss and crawls into bed with her, hugging her to him until she fell asleep. He climbs down and sits on the couch next to Derek and Scott and they talk for another two hours before a loud drone fills the room. Stiles _knows_ what’s going on and _no_ this can’t be happening _today_.

He rushes over and caresses her face, calling for her and urging her to wake up. He fists a hand in her hospital gown and drapes himself over her body, listening for a heartbeat. He grows frantic, pleading with her to wake up. When the doctors come in and start disconnecting tubes he’s wailing, his voice breaking with every desperate attempt to make her wake up. He feels arms go around his waist to restrain him and he hears Derek shushing him in a teary voice but he ignores him, slamming his fists into the older boy’s chest and legs.

Derek doesn’t let him go.

&+

He’s nearly thirteen when he starts talking again. In the meantime, his teachers have learned not to call on him, and everyone else knows they’ll be lucky to get a word or two out of him. His dad tries to send him to counseling but the only result is more tears and even fewer words.

Scott still hangs out with him, and Scott talks to him and is okay with not getting anything back, because he’s at least letting Stiles know that he’s there.

Derek hovers over him occasionally, and Stiles is okay with that because he understands his mother’s final words to the eighteen year old now.

Knowing her wish, Stiles goes to Derek and talks to him because his mom left Derek in charge of him.

He doesn’t speak at first; instead he draws up his shorts and displays his thigh to Derek who _growls_ at the sight of groups of self-inflicted cuts. He lunges forward and holds the twelve year old in his arms, muttering about how sorry he is for not having noticed and Stiles shrugs it off, but Derek doesn’t seem to think that’s good enough so Stiles kisses his cheek and promises that it won’t happen again, not anymore at least. At least he hoped not.

That was enough for Derek at the moment.

&+

He’s thirteen when Derek moves away—something about a pack of friends he has and Peter lets him go without a thought. Derek spends an hour saying good-bye to Stiles and only five minutes saying good-bye to everyone else.

Stiles had kept his promise to Derek up until a week after he was gone.

&+

He’s thirteen and a half when Peter and Melissa finally get married. He sees Derek for the first time in five months and he ignores him even when the older boy makes several attempts to talk to him.

He meets Laura Hale there and she smiles at him, explaining how she hears so much about him from her little brother and Stiles almost feels guilty about ignoring Derek until he remembers that Derek _willingly left him_ and the guilt goes away.

After the wedding, things get a little bit better. He sees a lot more of Laura Hale after Derek goes back to wherever he went to. For the past few years she was in college, and now that she’s done, she’s working as a kindergarten teacher at one of Beacon Hills’ elementary schools.

She becomes a sort of rock for him—taking over the position in his life that Derek once held. Perhaps she is even better because she’s got some insane super power when it comes to scent so she hugs him any time she can smell fresh blood on him, pleading with him to stop harming himself. He tries, and the self-inflicted wounds become fewer and fewer but he still misses his mom, and he still misses Derek.

His dad finally starts pulling out of his work and starts spending much more time with his son, something that he hadn’t done since before his wife had died. Stiles doesn’t blame him—he knew the house and each other were a reminder of what they lost, and they were able to accept it easier after over a year and a half.

&+

He’s fourteen when his teachers suggest moving him up from honors classes to AP classes because he’s a good student if you were to ignore his hyperactivity and lack of focus. This means he gets to see Lydia much more because like him, she’s being moved up to AP this year too.

He sits next to her in two of his four classes with her, and she ignores him in four of her four classes with him. He doesn’t care, really—he’s still determined to marry her.

Somehow, over the year, she stops ignoring him and starts smirking at his attempts to woo her. He takes this as encouragement and decides to ask her out after he makes first line of the lacrosse team a few weeks later, when he’s nearly fifteen, and she stares at him, lips pursed and strawberry blonde hair curled around her finger. She looks him up and down and tells him to be at her house at seven on Friday.

&+

He’s fifteen when they break up, but they stay friends, and he stays determined. He wants to marry Lydia Martin, and one stupid fight won’t change that. Not even her dating another guy— _Jackson_ he’s called—will make Stiles stop loving her, because after all, they dated for three months and _that_ didn’t make him love her any less, so there was something there.

Laura starts coming to Stiles’s place more often, checking in on him because she can still smell the blood sometimes, and he always has to explain it was just a paper cut, or he accidentally injured himself, and the three times he’s lying, she calls him out on it. He’s thankful for her because he’s not sure what he might have done without Derek had it not been for her.

“He still cares about you,” she tries to remind him from her spot on his bed one day as she watches him do his homework.

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well he’s got a shitty way of showing it.”

“You’ve always known that,” she insists.

The fifteen year old huffs and spins around in his desk chair to glare at her. “I’m just saying that I personally would never move cross country without even giving my family a week’s notice. There was something up with that, and it’s totally shitty of him to just leave me like that, Laur.”

“Sometimes the stress just gets to him and he shuts down,” she tries but Stiles snorts.

“Yeah, and how many times has the stress got to me? How many times did I run to Derek because of stress? How many times did he run to me? _Something wasn’t right_ and he didn’t even give me a chance. He just _left_ me and he didn’t think of anyone but himself. He left, and he never came back, and I haven’t heard a word from him, and that, to me, screams ‘thanks for being in my life but I don’t need you anymore, have a nice life, I hope you didn’t actually still need me in _your_ life!’ Because what other kind of a person would do that?”

“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t care…”

Stiles shrugs. “I don’t mean I don’t care either. I’d still take a bullet for the dude, but I’m allowed to be pissed and move on from that stage of my life.”

Laura nods, standing up and making her way towards the window. She turns back to him. “By the way,” she trails off, “if ever need be— _don’t_ take a bullet for him.”

Stiles stares at her as she leaves and frowns. He decides that the Hales’ are very cryptic people that he would rather not deal with this late at night, so when she’s gone, he locks his window and lies in his bed.

It’s the same year that he considers suicide, not for the first time. It’s a silly reason maybe, but it makes sense. His closest friend—apart from Scott, Laura, and Lydia—Jeremy is moving, and Stiles is sure that it’s an omen for his life, that all that he’s good for is losing those that he cares about. Because in a way, he’s already lost Lydia, and his dad is still very sparse in his life.

This time he makes preparations in case he finally decides to go through with it. He’s not sure how—he suspects Laura—but his dad finds the letters he begins to write and calls for an intervention between his entire family—Dad, Peter, Melissa, Scott, Laura, and Lydia.

It’s not a quiet affair, there’s too much yelling and too much screaming and for a while it makes Stiles more set on ending his life. His family is all arguing heatedly about who missed the signs and what the fuck they’re supposed to do now when Lydia comes over from her perch on the recliner to squeeze next to Stiles on his chair.

“This isn’t like you,” she finally murmurs curiously. “And I’m not an idiot. So either tell me what’s going on, or at least recall that I have over fourteen ways to drive you to insanity from psychological torture.”

Stiles smirks at her and leans in to her side. “I’m just so _done_ with everything. Everyone. Sure, people have it worse, but everyone has the same options in the end.”

Frowning, she rests her chin on his shoulder. “And you’re sick of everyone leaving you,” she observes. When he tries to turn and look at her she scoffs. “It’s obvious, seeing as you’ve written a letter to your mom and Derek, too.” She sighs and leans back into the chair, dragging Stiles’s torso with hers. “But I guess them leaving couldn’t have hurt too bad if you’re ready to do the same to us, right?”

Stiles stares at her, his mind working much too fast for him to actually process. His family was all still fighting around him, not even paying attention to him until Laura glances over and smells his fear, sadness, and his tears. She strides over to him and takes him in her arms, cooing gently for him to calm down, reassuring him she was sorry. Everyone follows suit after that, apologizing and deciding to take the simple approach of asking _why?_

He shakes his head and hugs each of them. “I won’t,” he assures them. “I _can’t_ ,” he reiterates. “I’m not going to do the same to all of you.”

&+

He’s sixteen when shit goes down. Laura hasn’t been to see him in five days and his dad talks about _half_ of a body, and Stiles frowns at that, and then he listens to the descriptions of said body half. A triskele tattoo on the top of the left foot is all Stiles needs to hear before he decides he is going to find the other half of the body because he knows he owes Laura that much. He goes to retrieve Scott late that night and they roam the woods until Stiles’s dad catches him.

Over the next month Scott and Stiles discover that werewolves are real, and it’s only when Derek shows up at the lacrosse pitch do they find out what exactly happened that night.

Stiles leaves in a rush when Derek appears, claiming that he has a test in AP chemistry the next day and he really should be studying. Scott comes over later and relays the details, however.

There’s a family of werewolf hunters that had found the easiest way to kill a werewolf is to cut it in two—making it impossible to heal. A group of hunters found Laura and killed her—a warning to any other werewolves in the area. Derek came back because he had suddenly become an alpha due to their family line. He hadn’t recognized Scott when Scott had stumbled upon the body and reacted defensively—biting him and ready to attack, but luckily he had smelled Scott. He left him then, running and waiting for the right time to tell his younger step sibling.

Scott doesn’t seem to be too freaked out by Derek’s admission, especially considering all of the research that Stiles keeps providing Scott with.

“He also wanted me to let you know he wants to talk to you,” Scott admits at the end of his tale.

Stiles blinks, tilting his head. “And you thought I might think to listen to him?”

“C’mon, man,” Scott insists. “He’s my _brother_ , you can just ignore family.”

“I’m not ignoring family,” he snaps. “Derek willingly walked away from me. He walked out of my life.”

“And Laura is gone from your life now too and you’re hurt—emotionally and physically by the smell of things—and face it dude, Derek is the only one who can help you really.”

Stiles growls at him shifting slightly so his fresh wound is facing away from Scott’s super nose. “I can help myself just _fine_ ,” Stiles tells him. “Now, I really _do_ have a chem test tomorrow, so…”

Scott frowns at him yet gets up anyways, walking out of his room.

The next week is hectic between two tests, a full moon, two lacrosse games, and Scott falling in love too damn fast. He’s pretty sure he fails the first test—after all, how the hell was he supposed to study when Derek Hale was clouding all of his thoughts? Thankfully Derek Hale makes lacrosse much easier for the co-captain of the lacrosse team because he can take his anger out on everyone else—even knocking Scott aside a time or two. And the full moon stresses him out because Peter doesn’t have anything to lock Scott up with since he’s had no need for the past ten years. He only sees Scott in class and he’s fed up with him, but he makes no move to change anything.

He gets both of his tests back the next week and curses when he finds two C’s staring back at him.

After school he climbs in his jeep and speeds towards the only place he can think to go.

He’s pounding on the door knowing that only one person could actually be home right now, and entirely not caring about nearly breaking down the door. When it swings open, Stiles storms through the small opening, shoving Derek aside. “You need to go,” he hisses, not even glancing at Derek.

“Excuse me?”

“You need to _go_ ,” Stiles reiterates furiously, turning to connect his eyes with Derek’s. “I don’t _want_ to talk to you but my subconscious seems to think it’s a great idea even when consciously I know it’s a _horrible_ idea, so guess who didn’t get perfect scores on two of his tests even though he _knew the shit like the back of his hand?_ If you guessed me, _you’re right_. And it’s all because of you! Fuck, Der, you coming back has turned my entire life upside down! Laura’s dead, and no, that’s not your fault—but she was the only person I had who could _help me_ and now she’s gone and I’m breaking again, even more so because I don’t want to be _near_ you because _you_ were the one who broke me when she came around to repair me, you ass! And then, you _bite_ my best friend and now coach is questioning whether I should really be a co-captain or not because _McCall is better than me suddenly_ and _who is better—Jackson or Bilinski? Should McCall take a co-captain slot?_ so I’m losing the only thing that makes me relatively _normal_ at school and now Scott is better at everything—excluding school. And fuck—I don’t want to only be the kid who’s smart because no one even _realizes_ I’m smart because who _flaunts_ their intelligence around here? _Not me_ , that’s who—and so instead I’m just the ADHD kid with too many words for anyone to process. Now Scott’s even got Allison and hardly has time for me anymore, and that’s totally not cool and—and _seriously_ , dude, I’m not stupid. I _know_ what’s gonna happen if I even think of letting you back in, so why the _fuck_ am I going to risk such an idiotic mistake? You’ll just leave me—like _everyone_ I give a shit about does. Mom, Lydia, Laura, Dad, Scott—Jeremy, even. You’ll just leave me _again_. I’m not going to give you that power over me, Derek. You’ve had it once before and you lost that power when you walked out.”

Derek is standing patiently, waiting for Stiles to finish rambling, his eyebrows raised slightly. “Are you done?” he asks boldly, a tone of hesitation in his voice.

Stiles stares at him, his jaw propped open in disbelief. “You know what? _No_. Because if I were done, you would be kicking me out because while you take the motherfucking cake for asshole of the year—and believe me, there is an asshole cake out in the world, I’ve seen it before and it’s coming for you, buddy—I’m being an asshole in your house and if I had even managed to get my point across you’d be kicking me out because it’s not _proper_ for someone to stand in someone’s house and scream about how much they _hate_ a person, and that’s exactly what I’m doing, so _apparently_ I haven’t done it well enough.”

Derek finally breaks his stance and steps towards Stiles. “But you’re not,” Derek insists. “You’re not screaming about how much you _hate_ me because you don’t—you’re just _mad_ , Stiles.”

The younger of the two lets out a humorless laugh. “Oh? Really? Oh—so now you can determine what I’m doing in my life? And while you’re at that take a guess at all of my inner emotions?”

“That’s what I used to do, isn’t it?”

“That’s not the _point_ , you _idiot_ ,” Stiles grumbles. “The point is that you lost everything _Stiles_ in your life when I lost everything _Derek_ in mine. I can’t even begin to imagine what kind of a man you are now—so don’t even _try_ imagining who I am now.”

Derek frowns. “But you’re the same Stiles.”

“ _Fucking really?_ ” he guffaws. “If you really think I’m the same broken kid from all those years ago—“

“You were never some _broken kid_ ,” Derek interrupts. He takes another step towards his friend and tries not to flinch when his friend takes another step back. “You were _hurt_ , and you’re _hurt_ now. You’ve never been broken.”

“Tell that to nine therapists and a family intervention—which, by the way, you weren’t at.”

“Because I’m not stupid enough to think you need an _intervention_.”

“Well _Laura_ was, and she was _right_ , by the way, otherwise there’s a huge chance I wouldn’t actually be standing here today.”

That news hits Derek a little too square in the face and he’s left stumbling backwards. “I would have known—you weren’t—you _couldn’t_ have—“

“Really—oh—okay, would you like to try that against my dad who hides his gun _still?_ ”

“Stiles…”

“No,” Stiles breaks in. “Look, you don’t get to say that like that anymore, alright? You don’t get to be _Derek_ like you used to be, because that’s not how this is going to work, alright? So, Derek, if you care at all, which I’m assuming you do based off of this entire visit—just _please_ , Der. I can’t go through this shit again.”

Derek swallows, nods once, and then walks past Stiles up to his room, leaving Stiles free to go.

&+

It’s less than three months later that Kate Argent makes her appearance. She’s sweet, Stiles thinks, but then he hears horror stories from Scott that Peter and Derek told him. The red flags go up and they’re cautious around her since Scott is such a new wolf, they can’t risk his safety. He tries to stop seeing Allison as much, he really does, but it doesn’t work.

“A freshly mated wolf can’t stay away from their mate for as long as they might think they can,” Peter explains one day when Stiles is having an impromptu ‘werewolf’ lesson with him. “It’ll take a year or so before he can keep away from her for long periods of time—before the wolf in him accepts that she’s not going anywhere. Wolves have one of the highest separation anxiety rates of any canines, and werewolves don’t get any slack in that department.”

Stiles looks up at him. “Werewolves actually have mates? Like, love at first sight mates?”

Peter shakes his head. “Not love at first sight, but they’re drawn to their mate, and eventually they’re made aware of their bond with their mate somehow.”

“So is Scott’s mom yours?”

He nods stiffly. “I thought I was one of the rare ones for a while—one that didn’t have a mate. But after the fire she helped everything make sense again.”

Stiles smiles slightly, shifting in his seat. He scrolls down the website he’s on and looks at Peter again. “What’s it feel like? To be mated—bonded with another person?”

“What do you mean?” Peter wonders, his eyebrows furrowing together.

The younger boy shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know. I mean, I guess like, what does true love feel like?”

“You don’t know?” Peter frowns. “But you’re— _oh_.”

“I’m what?”

“Nothing,” the older man shakes his head vigorously. “You’re a human with very _human_ emotions and you don’t have a wolf inside you drawing you to your mate.”

Stiles tries not to be too offended by his words and continues on researching about werewolves.

&+

When Derek is captured a few months later, Stiles isn’t happy. He hasn’t said a word to him since their argument nearly eight months ago and he’s not sure he’s ever been more furious with himself. That’s Derek— _his Derek_ —that Kate has locked up somewhere. Stiles is defenseless and he doesn’t know _what_ to do so he pleads with Scott and Peter to _find him_ and he clings to Lydia for the entire two weeks that he’s missing.

“I thought you hated him?” Lydia prods one day, her lips pursed and her eyes scanning her AP chemistry book.

Stiles groaned, fisting his hands in his too-short hair. “The dude’s my best friend, no matter how much I hate him. He’s family. He’s the last person I’d ever want to lose.”

“And yet you let him go all those months ago?”

“Because you don’t know what it’s like to have lost him _once_ , Lyd! I don’t _ever_ want to go through that pain again. Pushing him away was the only way to stop it.”

Lydia looks up at him and tilts her head to the side. “You know, for the smartest person I know, you’re actually really stupid,” she observes sarcastically. When Stiles recoils at her comments and stares at her with a hurt expression, she shifts on his bed and looks at where he is on his computer chair. “People get hurt in life. You know this because you’ve dealt with more pain than perhaps anyone should by this age. But I broke your heart and look where I am now. On your bed, in your room, being friendly. What’s different about Derek? Why isn’t he allowed back in your life?”

“Because he walked out,” Stiles answers immediately.

“Even you said his departure was weird—that something wasn’t right. Maybe he never really had a choice, Stiles.”

“But he would have _told_ me,” he whines.

Lydia blinks, pursing her lips back out and giving him a short nod. “Smart,” she mutters condescendingly. “Based an entire wall of hatred off some childish reason. You’re really going to succeed in that Law class you’re taking next year, aren’t you?”

Stiles ignores her for the rest of the night, only letting her cuddle him when he shows signs of an oncoming panic attack.

Four days later when Scott shows up to school, yawning every other minute, Stiles pesters him until he gets the information he wants. _Derek is safe_.

He skips the second half of the day and speeds over to the McCall-Hale house and throws open the unlocked door, sprinting up to Derek’s room. When he spots the older boy asleep on the bed, he lets out a strangled cry of relief and flings himself onto the bed, forgetting about the injuries scattered across Derek’s body for just a moment.

Derek lets out a cry of pain and shock when he’s awoken by Stiles’s body on his suddenly, but when he smells the musky scent that Stiles always seems to have coated on his skin, he relaxes into the mattress and wraps his arms tight around the smaller boy.

“Don’t do that again,” Stiles sobs openly. “ _Please_ ,” he cries. “I can’t lose you—I’m _sorry_.”

“Don’t be,” Derek murmurs against Stiles’s temple, pressing chaste kisses to the skin there. “I understand it all, Stiles. I get it.”

“My mom would hate me right now,” Stiles sniffled, cuddling further into Derek’s arms.

“ _No_ ,” Derek growls. “She could never hate you. I’m okay. You’re okay. It’s okay.”

Coming from anyone else, Stiles wouldn’t believe them. But he knows Derek could never lie to him, so he knows his mom could never hate him and that things were (or were going to be) okay.

&+

He’s seventeen when Jackson’s bite goes wrong and Gerard comes around for Kate’s funeral (who’s cause of death is being kept a secret from him but Stiles knows that Peter could have kill her without an ounce of guilt) and starts threatening everyone who has the smallest connection to the werewolves in Beacon Hills.

Scott depends on Stiles for all the answers and maybe Stiles is a little fed up with Scott’s constant pestering but he manages. He works with Peter the entire course of Gerard’s rein and tries not to be too concerned with Derek’s new pack. Something’s up with Isaac, Erica is using her status to her advantage (and _no_ , Stiles is _not_ jealous of her every time she climbs in Derek’s Camaro rather than him), and Boyd… Stiles likes Boyd so far and is hoping that doesn’t change.

He hasn’t patched things up completely with Derek yet and he still tries to avoid the other man as often as possible. He hasn’t asked why Derek left yet (he’s too scared to find out that he really did just abandon him) and he still hasn’t told Derek about his life now, but they’re managing to be civil. They mostly text—limiting face to face contact because Stiles isn’t sure how much he can take without punching Derek for everything he put him through or saying good bye to Derek so he can know just how much it hurt. Derek accepts it easily, admitting he doesn’t want to force Stiles into anything he’s not comfortable with. Stiles hates him a little more for being so adorably considerate.

When Derek’s pack begins their hunt for the kanima (read: Lydia), Stiles decides that he has no choice but to face Derek. He hurries out of the school after chemistry and finds Derek in the parking lot. Derek watches him approach, a questioning look upon his face. “What?” he wonders when Stiles is in hearing range.

“You’re not seriously planning on _killing_ her, Der,” Stiles growls, marching up to him and thrusting a finger in his face. He shakes his head angrily before turning to connect his eyes with Derek’s, glaring him down. “You _can’t_ be—“

Derek scoffs. “As if you understand.”

Annoyed, Stiles slaps Derek upside the head before returning to pointing his finger menacingly at Derek’s face. “As I was saying—you _can’t_ be, because if you were, I would be completely sure that you _have_ changed. Drastically. And for the absolute _worst_. Don’t you fucking _dare_ confirm my suspicions because if you lay one measly little alpha werewolf claw—or if any werewolf _thinks_ about harming her—you can be sure that you will never hear a word from me again.”

For the first minute following his words, Derek is silent. His face is frozen into a shocked expression, and Stiles isn’t sure if he’s actually breathed in the span of silence. Eventually, Derek blinks at him and shakes his head. “You’ll understand why I have no choice, Stiles. If I didn’t have to, I wouldn’t.”

“You _don’t_ have to!” Stiles yells angrily.

“Would you rather strangers keep dying than having one of your friends—who, might I add is _doing_ the killing of said strangers—die to protect those people?” Derek asks. “If you would, it’s _you_ who has changed.”

“Have you thought about how to _save_ her? Have you considered trying to find a cure to her kanima-ness?” Stiles questions. “And what proof do you have? What evidence do you have that it is most _certainly_ her?” Derek goes silent. He opens his mouth to speak again but Stiles quickly cuts him off. “And if you dare suggest that her lack of reaction to paralyzing _goo_ is solidified evidence, I will walk away right now and not even give you the chance to redeem yourself.” He stares at Derek for a few seconds before nodding. “I’m going to be with her every moment from the time I get back to her side until I know you’ve realized how idiotic you’re being. So just _know_ that.”

“Stiles— _it’s dangerous_ ,” Derek chokes out. “She’ll hurt you—she won’t mean to, but she _will_.”

“Well that seems to be a common hobby among the people in my life anyways, so I’m not too worried.”

“Physically, Stiles,” Derek insists, a worried note to his voice.

“Would you like me to drop my pants here and now to show you those cuts you saw from all those years ago to remind you of all the scars you left on me—without meaning to?”

Derek’s jaw clenches. “She could _kill_ you, Stiles.”

“Would you like to wait here or come with me to my house so I can show you my suicide note to you?”

Derek tenses up, staring at Stiles with wide, hurt eyes. “Stiles…”

“Back off, Derek. It’s not her. And if it is, I’m going to save her.”

Only three weeks later, after learning that Lydia isn’t the kanima and that Jackson _is_ the kanima, Stiles finds himself at gunpoint. He knows an awful lot has gone on—for example Victoria Argent’s death, along with someone (Matt, most likely) spiking Lydia’s party drinks with wolfsbane, finding out Matt was controlling the kanima (Jackson), and more that he doesn’t even want to think about—but he never thought that events would lead to _this_.

As his dad pleas with Matt to put the gun down, he hears a roar. He’s never really heard a werewolf’s howl, but he can tell what it is as soon as he hears it, and he can tell _who’s_ it is. He wants to cry, because Derek’s howl sounds so _hurt_ and upset but Stiles is powerless to do anything, and instead has to watch as Matt handcuffs his dad to a radiator. Stiles somehow just _knows_ Derek is hurt and the urge to go look after him grows stronger until he finally decides that at the moment, he doesn’t _care_ if there’s a gun pointed at him. He rushes out of the room, nearly bumping in to a wolfed-out Peter Hale as he does so. Peter shoves him out of the way and lunges at Matt before the high school student has any chance to shoot the gun. Knowing that the situation was currently under control, Stiles rushes from the room to the front of the building and finds Derek on the floor, paralyzed.

“Stiles?” Derek grinds out in surprise. “Find something sharp, will you?”

A minute later, Stiles is kneeling over Derek with a letter opener in hand. “What now?” Stiles asks, panicked.

“Stab my leg with it. Don’t think twice. Just do it. You know I’ll heal. It’ll trigger the healing process. Don’t ask questions, just _do it_.”

And so Stiles does.

It still takes about three minutes for Derek to be completely mobile again, so while they wait Stiles clutches Derek’s hand tightly in his own and they don’t speak, but they both understand that they’re right where they are in the moment for each other. By the time Derek can once again stand, they hear a loud crashing from the other room. They both hurry to the other room where Scott is clutching his side while Peter is holding Matt against the wall, claws out and ready to kill.

“You don’t hurt _my son_ ,” he growls, tightening his grip on the boy’s neck.

“Peter!” Stiles calls in shock. He isn’t sure why, but he can’t watch a man he views as a second father figure _kill_ someone.

Peter freezes and turns back to look at Stiles, and relaxes his grip just slightly. He then let’s go completely, lunging towards Stiles with a loud “watch out!”

Of course Stiles knows that he’s be scratched by the kanima as soon as it happens—after all, he was one of the first to encounter the creature when he was getting his car fixed, and therefore one of the first to be paralyzed by it. After that—everything happens all at once. He feels the poison pumping through his blood and feels himself falling towards the ground. Derek catches him. Peter chases off the kanima, snarling at it viciously. His father starts yelling, tugging at the handcuffs, screaming that Matt is getting away. Matt disappears out the door at the same time the kanima escapes out the window.

“Shit,” Peter curses, pounding on the wall next to the window where the lizard-like creature has escaped. He turns and bolts out the door, following close behind Matt. Scott is limping towards the front, curious about the commotion he heard outside. Derek is clutching Stiles tight, apologizing over and over. His dad is struggling to get free, and when he finally does manage to break away from the radiator, he rushes over to Stiles and Derek, petting Stiles’s hair in a soothing way.

Just when Stiles is positive that the day has surely been packed full of so much action and drama that there can’t _possibly_ be anymore to come, Scott bursts through the door and slams it shut.

“Derek! Run!”

“Wh-what?” Stiles chokes out softly, confusion written plainly across his face. Derek’s expression mimics his perfectly as he stares up at Scott.

“Allison’s after you. She thinks it’s your fault her mom is dead. I think I managed to stall her for almost a minute but you need to go _now_.”

Derek keens lowly in the back of his throat and clutches Stiles closer to him. “You guys are in danger if I leave,” he points out painfully.

Scott shakes his head vehemently. “She didn’t kill me for a reason, Derek. She only wants you. _Go_.”

Derek looks down at Stiles, a frown on his face. “Go,” Stiles urges. “I’ve got my dad and Scott to protect me even if she wants to hurt me.”

The older werewolf whimpers but gently lays Stiles on his back on the tiled floor, and flees out the window. Stiles watches helplessly twenty seconds later when Allison barges in the room, her crossbow aimed and ready to fire. She curses at Scott when she sees that Derek is no where to be found, and backs out of the room, fleeing from the scene. The sheriff curses and curls a hand around the back of Stiles’s neck. “And I thought Peter was joking when he called Derek his pup,” he murmurs, drawing a laugh out of both Stiles and Scott.

That night, someone—or something—manages to kill Matt. Peter wasn’t entirely sure, but he was willing to bet Gerard, and in all honesty—so was everyone else.

Two weeks later, when Gerard finally manages to capture Stiles after Allison lets on that he will be the best possible bait to draw Derek in with, bad things start to happen.

Of course, Stiles doesn’t watch them happen but he hears about them from the Argent’s conversations while he’s stuck in their basement.

No one has told anyone where Stiles is yet, and they’ve kept him so isolated that Derek can’t sniff him out. Stiles isn’t quite sure why the thought of the Argent’s house wasn’t one of the first places they looked, but he tries not to think too much of it. Derek had threatened bodily harm to Allison several times, even leaving large scratch marks against her face and arms and sides. She laughs about it with Gerard as he stitches her up.

Eventually, when Scott over hears a conversation between Allison and Derek, he falls apart because he didn’t know it was Allison. And so finally, Scott has turned his back on her too, and she’s starting to fall apart because she has _no one_ except for Gerard, because even her father has abandoned her for the time being.

Lydia is perhaps the worst. Lydia, who Allison has no afflictions with whatsoever, is the coldest towards the wannabe werewolf hunter. The redhead is ignoring her and when she isn’t, she’s glaring daggers at her—ready to kill. Stiles is, after all, Lydia’s best friend, and maybe was even her first love. Allison didn’t know until recently, and the day she finds out, she walks down to the basement and stares at Stiles. After a moment she shakes her head, tears beginning to fall down her face. “I’m sorry. You won’t ever understand Stiles. But I have to do this. I’m just sorry it’s you.”

“You know,” Stiles begins in a soft voice, “if you kill Derek, you’ll lose everyone. And take it from someone who has lost… _everyone_. It sucks. You’ve already lost your mom. Don’t risk your friends.”

Allison scoffs, her emotions once again taking over. “No—you don’t understand,” she’s whimpering. Her voice shakes as she speaks, and she’s shaking her head as more and more tears start to fall. “Derek is a _murderer_. And I’m sick of that being overlooked by all of you!”

“Derek saved Scott’s life!” Stiles growls angrily. “Derek bit your mom. _She_ chose to die! Derek is a brother. A friend. A son. A—a _mate_ to someone, for fuck’s sake. He loves someone out there as much as Scott loves you. And someone loves him as much as you love Scott. He’s a werewolf, yeah. But he’s not a murderer.”

“You’re lying,” she hisses angrily, backing up. She’s now openly sobbing as she stares at him, and he’s pretty sure she’s noticing what she’s done for the first time. She’s looking at his bruises and cuts and his arm that is most definitely broken and probably healing at the wrong angle by this point. She’s gaping at him, looking at his restraints that keep him sat in the chair. She’s eyeing the handcuffs that keep him from any chance of escape, and the rope that’s digging into his shins and ankles. She shakes her head as she turns for the stairs and shakes her head again as she whispers, “You have to be lying.”

Stiles doesn’t see her again for the rest of that week. He doesn’t hear her voice, and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t even hear her come into the house. Gerard is almost always there though, making sure the bruises never fade completely, and the cuts aren’t scabbed over for too long.

Once Stiles starts fighting back, Gerard gets excited. He provokes him daily until one day Stiles finally manages to break out of some of the binds that held his torso to the chair. “You’d make such a good hunter, Mr. Stilinski,” Gerard tells him one day—four days after the Allison debacle took place. It’s been over a week and a half since he was taken, and the pack still hasn’t shown up. He’s pretty sure they don’t know where he is. Or, well, he’s _hoping_ because otherwise he’s going to feel like shit if they _have_ known and just haven’t bothered breaking him out.

Stiles shakes his head. “Not really,” he disagrees with the old man’s statement. “Not the hunter you’d want me to be. I could never kill an innocent. I could never let my step-daughter believe she’d become a monster so horrible that she should die rather than live on. I could never lie to my granddaughter. I could never break a code that I swore to follow—well, not without a major event to make me reconsider which after extensive research, never occurred in your life. I don’t think I’d ever let my daughter become like Kate either—that was just a fuck up on your end, though, wasn’t it? I don’t think—“

He is cut off by a fist connecting with the side of his jaw and he groans. Gerard takes a step closer to him. “Ignore what I said,” he mutters. “You wouldn’t be able to shut up long enough to get the upper hand, would you?” Gerard draws out a dagger and traces it up and down Stiles’s throat. Eventually, he settles below his jawline and increases the pressure.

“Actually, I’m quite good at not talking when I need to. So, you know, say a few werewolves were sneaking up on someone and didn’t want them to know? I could definitely keep my mouth shut in a situation like that.”

Gerard narrows his eyes and presses the blade hard enough to break skin. Stiles sucks in a breath and flinches back. He stares at Gerard and sighs. “Actually, now that I think of it, I don’t think I could even keep my mouth shut then.”

As he finishes that sentence, Gerard is grabbed and dragged away from him, surprise prominent on his features.

Stiles hears the click of handcuffs and a loud, shaky voice declaring, “Gerard Argent, you are under arrest for the kidnap and torture of my son, you _son of a bitch_.”

Stiles is pretty sure he relaxes for the first time in days once Derek and Scott start working on removing his bindings. Stiles is positive he’s okay for the first time in days once he falls weak into Derek’s arms, finally leaving the prison of the wooden chair.

They take him to the hospital for dehydration, malnutrition, and his injuries. Derek stays by his side until they decide that they’re going to have to rebreak his arm, and he decides he’d much rather be passed out for that part. They offer him anesthesia and Derek knows that means he’ll be taken to an OR, especially considering they’re going to be putting pins in his arm to help set the bones right.

He watches with scared eyes as they wheel Stiles away, only reassured slightly by Stiles’s weak, pained smile that seems kind of like a promise that everything will be okay.

Hours later and Stiles is waking up. He chokes up a plastic tube and grimaces trying hard to move his unbroken arm to grab it and move it. However, Derek is clutching his left hand tightly, sleeping on his arm, leaving him unable to move it. His dad is sitting in the corner of the room rubbing his eyebrows with his thumb and forefinger. Stiles coughs a laugh. “I always hate when I’m the cause of that expression,” he admits.

His dad’s eyes fly up to look at him and he breaths out a sigh of relief. He jumps up from his chair and hurries over to the bed and gathers Stiles up in a hug, ignoring the pained cries. The cries manage to wake Derek, however, who shifts into his wolf form. He reaches across the bed to grab the sheriff’s shoulder, pulling him away from the hurt boy beneath him.

“Derek!” Stiles cries out in shock, surprising Derek out of his defensive state. When the werewolf realizes whom he’s holding on to, he shoves the sheriff away and starts apologizing vehemently. Stiles shushes the older boy until Derek falls back into the chair he had been sleeping in. “You okay?” Stiles asks when Derek returns to his human form.

Derek looks at him with wide eyes. “Am _I_ okay? Stiles—you’re the one in the hospital bed.”

Stiles smirks. “Ehh. But I’m okay, right?”

His father snorts. “Ever the optimist, right kid?”

“Not really,” Stiles admits. “But I _am_ okay. And hey. That’s good.”

“But you’re hurt,” Derek whimpers, leaning over the injured boy, hiding his face in his neck. “’s my fault.”

Stiles shoves Derek away, rolling his eyes. “It’s Gerard’s fault, you idiot. Allison’s, actually. Or—both. Both works. Let’s go with both. And a bit of my own fault. I of all people should’ve known that walking to a convenient store at 10 at night is a stupid move.”

“Honestly, son,” Sheriff laughs weakly. He’s clearly trying to remain calm about the situation—his son had just gotten out of a torture situation—but he’s still shaky.  Stiles smiles at his father’s attempt anyways. “Fresh air is good, but not when you know there’s supernatural things out there.”

Stiles can pinpoint the exact moment when Derek relaxes. He’s not sure what causes it—maybe the light hearted tone that his dad takes on which proves to Derek that Stiles is completely fine. Maybe the realization that Stiles won’t be so stupid anymore and will take extra precaution. Maybe the way Stiles searches for his hand and grips it tight in his own. Any way—Stiles knows Derek is okay now.

After a minute of silence, Sheriff looks at his son and sighs. “There’s someone out there to apologize, son. And I want you to listen, alright? _Listen_. You don’t have to forgive. You don’t have to understand. But just _listen_.”

And then his dad was gone, and Allison was standing before him with tear-stained cheeks. Derek was growling and Stiles was holding his breath. Allison takes note of both these facts and decides to keep her distance. She looks up at Stiles and lets out a shuddering breath and then starts talking.

“I didn’t know,” she admits. “I didn’t know Derek saved Scott. I didn’t know the letter was a lie. _I didn’t know_. Gerard manipulated me so I could bring down the pack, but I wasn’t going to. I was just going after Derek because I was told that he killed my mom. I was told that he killed my mom for _no reason_. That he murdered my mom in cold blood. And I couldn’t accept that. Because we have a code. Part of that code being if a werewolf harms a human, you know… _just_ to harm a human, we take them down. And I thought I was following the code, in a way. Stiles—you never should’ve gotten involved. It was Gerard’s idea, and I didn’t know he was hurting you. I didn’t know that until I turned against him. I didn’t know that it was all a lie, Stiles.”

Allison starts drawing in shaky breaths at this point, unable to control her sobs. Her hands are shaking wildly and Stiles stares at her helplessly. “No,” he chokes out. “Allison, shut up. Come ‘ere.” Derek looks at Stiles and growls angrily, clutching his hand tighter. Stiles glares at him. “Shut up, sour wolf. Everyone fucks up. Someone needs to be there to forgive them.”

“Stiles, she was trying to kill me! Gerard was torturing you!”

“Don’t try and tell me you’ve never been manipulated by someone you love, or to save someone you love, Der. What about Kate? You would’ve killed her if someone else hadn’t gotten to her first. Allison didn’t know. And that’s not her fault. She knows now.”

“I swear, Derek,” Allison jumps in. “I was the one who told Scott where Stiles was. I was the one who broke the mountain ash barrier. I’m _trying_ to right my wrongs. Just please give me a chance.”

Derek grumbles and lets go of Stiles’s hand, and then storms out of the room. Stiles sighs and looks at Allison. “He’ll come around. If he doesn’t I’ll threaten him or something. As long as you don’t ever turn against us again, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she murmurs. “I’m really sorry, Stiles.”

“Don’t be. Just know what you did was wrong. I mean—I know that Derek’s still looking for the hunters that killed Laura. He’s just like you. He’s going to do anything to get them. Just like you were willing to do for who you thought killed your mom. And you didn’t know, all right? On that point though—check with one of us, yeah? If we ever fuck up—we need a chance to explain a misunderstanding, okay? But you’re okay. I’m okay. Derek’s okay. And knowing Lydia, she won’t forgive you until I have. Go get your best friend back.”

Allison nods and starts for the door. “I’m really sorry again,” she says one last time. “I never should’ve used his mate against him, especially when it was you.” She continues on, not noticing Stiles’s blanch. “My dad and I are changing the code, too,” she admits. She looks up at him with a determined expression and recites, “ _Nous protégeons ceus qui ne peuvent pas se protéger leurs-même._ It means ‘we protect those who cannot protect themselves.’ We won’t get mixed up in something like this again,” she promises. “My father and I have vowed to keep to this new code. You don’t have to worry about us anymore.”

“Okay, but wait—“

Allison shakes her head, effectively cutting the rest of his sentence off. “Stiles, Scott is waiting outside this door for you and if I don’t let him in right now I’m probably going to need to protect _myself_. I’ll talk to you later, alright?”

Stiles nods once and watches as she walks out, and laughs as Scott shoves through the door, stumbling towards the bed. “Stiles!” he yelps excitedly, jumping towards him to hug him. Stiles lets out an ‘oof!’ and Scott just laughs. “Sorry man,” he apologizes half-heartedly. He lays a hand on Stiles’s shoulder and concentrates. His veins turn black beneath his skin, astounding Stiles.

“What are you _doing_?” he asks in shock.

“Taking some of the pain?” Scott says, confused. “Dude, Derek’s been doing this the entire time. He’s been more pissed off than usual because cuts are things that sting more than _hurt_ , so he has to keep taking pain because it’s not a constant pain, you know?” Stiles’s breath hitches at the mention of Derek and Scott frowns. “What is it, dude?”

“Nothing,” Stiles murmurs, trying to brush the thoughts away. He doesn’t want to think about that right now—doesn’t want to think that he’s _Derek’s mate_. He feels his heart beat speed up, he hears it on the monitor, and Scott also takes note of it.

“Dude, are you okay?”

Right as Stiles was about to answer, Derek burst through the door, his eyes wide with concern. Stiles’s jaw snapped shut and he swallowed—his throat still sore from the tube that had been down his throat only an hour ago. Derek hurries over to his bed and glares at Scott. “What’d you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Scott squeaks out, holding his hands up in defense. “His heart just started racing and he got really nervous!”

Derek looks at Stiles, caressing his face in one of his large hands. “Stiles? You good?”

“Y—yeah. Just. Kind of maybe pissed at you?”

Derek flinches back. “What? Why? Because I didn’t forgive Allison? Stiles, she kidnapped you—I wasn’t just going to--!”

“No, Der,” he mutters. “Because—am I? Am I important to you?”

Once again, Derek recoils and steps away from Stiles. “Don’t you—don’t you _know_ that you’re important to me, Stiles? If not, I’m sorry I’ve done such a shitty job of showing it, but you’ve always _acted_ like you’ve known.”

“Do I mean more to you than other people,” he rephrases awkwardly. He’s trying his best to avoid the word ‘mate’, but with the way that Derek’s looking, he’s not going to get away with it.

“ _Stiles_ ,” he whispers softly. “You _know_ you do. Why is it making you so scared?”

“Why did you never tell me?” Stiles asks, ignoring the look of realization on Scott’s face that he can see out of the corner of his eye.

“Tell you what?”

“That he’s your mate,” Scott says lowly. “Why did you never tell him how much he meant to you? Why did you never tell him that he was your _mate_?”

Derek freezes, his shoulders tensing and his breath hitching. He leans forward to press his forehead to Stiles’s and sighs. “I didn’t want to scare you off,” he admits. “I didn’t want to trap you. I wanted you to love me first. I wanted you to fall in love with me without feeling the need to. I wanted it to be more than just _mates_. I wanted it to be a strong relationship, Stiles. I still do.”

“Peter told me about mates a while ago, Derek,” Stiles huffs, pulling his head as far away from Derek as he can manage. “I thought the crush I had on you was pointless because I obviously wasn’t your mate! I thought I needed to get over you because Peter and Scott had mates so you did, too! I thought your mate was wherever you ran off too! I thought I had to get over you before it could ever develop into anything more!” Stiles shakes his head and lets out a long breath. “You’ve always known I was your mate, haven’t you?”

Derek rolls his eyes, standing up straight. “It’s not like I could’ve done anything a few years ago. You’re six years younger than me—I had to wait until you were at least a decent age.”

“How long have I been a decent age for, now? Fifteen, maybe sixteen? Seventeen now? Eighteen soon, Der? Were you going to wait until I was twenty-one?”

“You’re underage, Stiles.”

“My dad is the Sheriff and he knows you’d never take advantage of me! He’d know if he ever caught us fucking it’d be because _I_ pressured _you_. You know that.”

“You’re still angry with me,” Derek admits. Stiles tilts his head and ignores the click of the door as Scott manages his escape. Derek moves closer. “I left, Stiles, and I left you and I hurt you and you’re still angry with me. I left because there was a pack in New York that I needed to ally with because our pack is _weak_ right now. Or—it was. Peter couldn’t go because he has Melissa, and a job, and our family to look after. Laura didn’t want to go; she had just gotten a job and she was the alpha of our pack and _had_ to stay in Beacon Hills. I didn’t have to go, but our pack was just the three of us. We had gone from a pack of fourteen to a pack of three in one night, and so we looked for my dad’s old pack. When we found them, we decided to get in contact and I chose to visit and stay with them because I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. I needed Beacon Hills to be safe. And they were our best bet. We’ve got a stronger pack now, but we’re still rebuilding.”

Stiles lets out an annoyed groan. “Why didn’t you tell me this? You realize you could’ve stopped me from being so _pissed_ at you _months_ ago? Years ago if you told me you were a fucking werewolf before you left! Or if you even just said ‘hey, Stiles, going to visit some family friends.’ You didn’t even make it clear that you were planning to come back when you left! That’s why I hated you for so long! You just left me and didn’t even try and stay in contact! Didn’t even let me know it wasn’t going to be forever!”

“I didn’t know at the time, Stiles,” Derek coos, trying to calm Stiles down. “I didn’t know if they’d try to make me join their pack—which they did. And then when I became alpha—in my family’s line—they told me to go home and call if I ever needed them, because they already had an alpha.”

“Why didn’t you tell me when you got back—when I found out about werewolves?”

“You wouldn’t talk to me. And then when you did, you promised me an asshole cake,” Derek reminds him. “Which, by the way, I never got.”

Stiles looks up at his _mate_ (he’s pretty sure he might not _ever_ get over that) and grins. “I’ve got another asshole that might be to your liking.”

Derek groans, pulling away from Stiles. “I should’ve known that would’ve been your response.”

Stiles laughs gleefully and grabs Derek’s shirt, dragging him back down. Derek rolls his eyes and curls his body close to Stiles, nuzzling his nose into Stiles’s shoulder. “Mm,” Derek sighs contently, placing a kiss below the younger boy’s jaw. “I love you.”

Once again, the heart monitor speeds up and Derek lets out a low chuckle. Stiles pouts and pulls away to look Derek in the eye. “Really?” he asks warily. When Derek nods he lets out an awkward laugh. “Jeez, Mr. Hale. I mean, ‘I love you’ before the first date?” Stiles shakes his head. “Moving a bit fast there, are we?”

Derek opens his mouth to shoot back some snarky remark but is cut off by Stiles surging up and crushing their mouths together. Derek lets out a surprised noise and Stiles laughs into the kiss. Stiles pauses for a moment and pulls away. “You’re lucky I’m a speed racer.”

&+

“You know,” Stiles starts casually at one of the weekly McCall-Hale family dinners almost two months later, “Allison is actually the reason we’re together.”

Derek sighs and looks over at Allison who is deep in conversation with Erica, Boyd, and Scott. He looks back at Stiles and presses their foreheads together. “Stiles, I forgave her weeks ago.”

Stiles shrugs. “I’m not telling you that because I want you to like her more. I’m telling you that because you need to thank her. She told me I was your mate.”

“I’m not going to thank her for telling you what I would’ve eventually told you.”

“Derek!” Stiles whines in frustration, pulling his face away from the werewolf’s. “She’s Scott’s mate. She’s going to be in your pack, whether you like her or not. Just grow a pair and thank her for telling me, would you?”

Derek huffs and pushes off the couch, striding over to his brother’s mate. He interrupts and pulls Allison away from the group. Scott eyes him warily, adjusting his body into a position where he can quickly jump up if he needs to. Stiles can see Scott straining his ears and suddenly Stiles wishes he was a werewolf because he could really use some super hearing right now.

Stiles turns away from the alpha and hunter and looks around the living room and smiles. Peter has Melissa on his lap on one of the recliners at the far end of the room with his dad and Chris Argent sitting on the couch next to them, laughing with them. Isaac is sitting with Lydia and Jackson, rolling his eyes at nearly all of Jackson’s remarks. Lydia is making faces at Isaac from her place on Jackson’s lap, and Jackson remains oblivious to the banter that his girlfriend and (surprisingly) best friend have going between them.

His eyes land back on Scott, Boyd, and Erica then, and he goes between watching Derek and Allison talking and Scott listening and he smiles when he sees Scott smile. When he turns his attention back to his boyfriend and Allison, his expression drops. He’s shocked to see Allison enveloping the older boy in her arms. Derek stands motionless for a moment before returning the hug. Stiles grins wide, looking back over to Scott who looks just as pleased. When Derek returns to his side a minute later, Stiles pulls him down on to the couch and maneuvers his body so he’s on Derek’s lap. Derek laughs at the younger boy’s action and wraps his arms around Stiles’s waist, pulling him close to his chest, careful to avoid the arm that had been removed from its cast earlier that day.

“So?” Stiles prompts eagerly.

“So… She and I are good, I think. She’ll use her hunter advantage for the good of the pack, and I’ll look past the whole ‘you kidnapped my mate’ thing she had going for her.”

“What about the whole thanking her thing?” Stiles asks in exasperation, fidgeting in Derek’s lap. “I will make you go back over there—“

“I thanked her,” Derek assures him, stilling Stiles by resting his chin on his shoulder. “I thanked her for dropping the bomb that you and I were mates, and I thanked her for helping save you. I thanked her for making my brother happy, and I thanked her for everything she’s done for the pack. She thanked me for forgiving her. I told her to thank you.”

Stiles lets out a low whistle and turns his head to look at Derek. “That’s a lot of thanks going around.”

Derek laughs softly, tightening his grip on his mate. “All thanks to you.”

With one last glance around the room, Stiles readjusts his position in his boyfriend’s lap so he’s laying across his lap. He turns his head into Derek’s chest and nuzzles close. He lets his eyes drift shut knowing that everyone in this room will be there when he wakes up—will be there for the foreseeable future. 

**Author's Note:**

> If I get inspired, I might do more in this verse. I'm not entirely sure yet. But I might do some of season three in this verse. I don't know. Anyways. 
> 
> Hopefully you enjoyed it? 
> 
> HOPEFULLY IT WAS A NICE BREAK FROM 3B'S SHITLOAD OF ANGST.  
> I MEAN I KNOW A LOT OF THIS WAS ANGST BUT IT WASN'T /PAINFUL/ ANGST LIKE 3B IS. 
> 
> also a few personal side notes:  
> 1\. The ADHD fight came from inspiration from when I was diagnosed. I was called stupid, and I did fight back, and I was hit. So. Idk man.  
> 2\. Claudia's death was also inspired by a personal event. When my long lost aunt was dying, she told my mom to look after her son and daughter seven hours before she died.  
> 3\. I'm rly sorry it ended so abruptly. That was all I had for this fic, I guess. 
> 
> Anyways. 
> 
> Also you can find me at macklemordred on tumblr. 
> 
> Have fun with that, kiddies.


End file.
